Mosel Music Festival

The Mosel Music Festival, founded in 1985 in the City of Bernkastel-Kues by artist director and manager Hermann Lewen, began with seven concerts and a philosophy to combine first class music with culture.

Today, the Mosel Music Festival is one of the oldest festivals in Germany now having 55 popular concerts stretching 200 kilometers along the Mosel River. This summer-long event continues to present its original philosophy every weekend, beginning Sunday and continuing through Oct. 3.

A different big name musician performs each day during the weekends giving their own unique touch to the festival. Each performance takes place at a different venue in the Mosel region, including Bremm, Cochem and Trier. There are 30 to 45 venues open for the artists to perform in, and they are all meant for a crowd of around 2,500 people at a time. These big name artists come to perform in these small halls for a reason.

“It’s not our philosophy to get bigger in audition,” said Marcus Latsch, artistic administrator of the Mosel Music Festival. “(Our philosophy) is big stars in small places, so the musicians can interact with the people.”

The musical performances include a variety of open-air and classical music, most of that being chamber music that is normally meant to be performed in front of smaller audiences.

Latsch said these big name performers, including soprano Dorothee Mields, classical artist and soprano Simone Kermes, and the multitalented Kit Armstrong, who interestingly enough performed her piano skills on David Letterman at age 6, choose to share their talents at Mosel Music Festival because the atmosphere and people have them coming back for more.

“The artists bring their culture to our small concerts,” Latch said. “Then, they take a small piece of culture from our region.”

In fact, tenor Klaus Florian Vogt performed a piano piece specially composed for and about the Mosel Music Festival. Even better, the original piece was premiered at the festival in September 2012.

The Mosel region is best known for its locally made Mosel wines — another piece added to the Mosel Music Festival philosophy. Wine tastings and fireworks gracefully connect with the concerts on specific dates during the summer; the songs are specially written about the wine for the wine-tasting weekends and are set up to coincide with the firework displays on the firework weekends.

Aug. 30 and Sept. 4 are the dates for the wine tastings as the musicians “play music to the wine.” There are 10 bottles of carefully chosen wine, and each bottle has a specific song chosen for it. Everyone tastes the same bottle of wine while the music plays, making the wine all the more tasty. This year, a recorder from South Africa paired music pieces with their wines in advance to be sure they were meant to be — of course the proper way to do this was to taste test different wines as he chose the songs.

As with the wine tastings, songs are carefully chosen for the firework weekends as well.

The first firework weekend takes place in Bremm on July 11, and the second display will be held Aug. 8 with an open-air baroque-style performance that is timed perfectly with the fireworks.

The Mosel Music Festival brings Germany’s historical cities to life, one of those being Trier or “the Roma of the north,” Germany’s oldest city.

Trier’s Porta Nigra and Basilica of Constantine, historical buildings that date back more than 2,000 years, will serve as a backdrop to the musical entertainment, making the event more unique.

“Having a concert in such an old place creates an atmosphere you can’t buy,” Latsch said. “(It’s) just impressive.”

Friday and Saturday concerts begin around 8 p.m. On Sundays, there will be occasional morning concerts beginning at 11 a.m. and evening concerts at 5 p.m.

For more information on the festival or how to purchase combo tickets (includes food and beverages, wine tastings and music), visit www.moselmusikfestival.de.